Developers Fight Back

Well, what goes around, comes around. I enjoyed your article “Getting SLAPPed” (by Ron Galperin, April 29), about developers suing homeowners groups that try to prevent development in their neighborhoods. It’s about time that businessmen fight back against those who move somewhere and then decide no one else has the right to live there or open a business there.

I sympathize with people who want to preserve a certain quality of life in their community, but they have to realize they cannot turn back the clock of progress. Growth means jobs and prosperity. Developers should be made welcome, not harassed by neighborhood “do-gooders.”

Whatever happened to private property rights? The owners of a property should be able to do with it whatever they like, without holding a majority vote in the surrounding area. Instead, neighbors are going to court, holding up legitimate projects, and costing developers a fortune in lost time. Then these self-appointed guardians want their own legal costs to be paid by the developers! This is bizarre.

In the past, businessmen have gone along and tried to meet all kinds of objections. Now they are standing their ground and fighting for their rights. Neighborhood activists need to be held responsible for the financial damage they cause. They deserve to be in court if they violate other people’s rights.

Of course activists have a First Amendment right to petition the government. That’s why government officials or agencies have no right to sue them. The activists can petition all they want, but they can’t force the government to take away someone’s private property rights. One of these activists would be the first to complain if the government tried to stop her from putting up a fence in her yard, after a neighbor complained about it.

Now is the time for these neighborhood activists to go back home and mind their own business. If our economy is to grow and provide enough jobs, private businesses must be allowed to flourish. For this to happen, they must have office space and living space for their employees. A few people have always stood in the way of progress. Now they know there are legal consequences to this position.

TED BROWN

Pasadena